


deep inside this ancient heart

by lavenderseaslug



Category: Holby City
Genre: (the barest hint of bernie/serena), Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-12
Updated: 2017-12-12
Packaged: 2019-02-14 02:39:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12998025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lavenderseaslug/pseuds/lavenderseaslug
Summary: She feels out of sorts, off-kilter, like she’s wearing her shoes on the wrong feet and can’t fix it.





	deep inside this ancient heart

**Author's Note:**

> hey we got the winter trailer today, hey i have eight thousand feelings about serena in the parking lot, hey i just spewed out some word vomit real fast!

When Serena moves to the baggage claim at the Holby Airport, there is no one waiting for her. She stands, hands folded, waiting to see her luggage come around the carousel. There are people moving about her, hugs and called out greetings. She is alone, but she’s used to it, finds a measure of peace in it. 

When she sees her suitcase, she lifts it easily, arms strong from months working in a vineyard, carrying bushels of grapes, doing the hard manual labor she never had to do before. She does not think of a tap stuck up a man’s rear end, does not think about arm wrestling or warm hands and dark eyes. 

She has time, before she goes back to work, time to herself, to her house, to try to pull back into herself, to climb back into her old skin. She feels out of sorts, off-kilter, like she’s wearing her shoes on the wrong feet and can’t fix it. A taxi takes her home and she realizes she only has euros in her purse, that she forgot to change money at the airport. She thinks the change will only be harder from here on out.

Her house is empty, dark. She stopped her mail, stopped the paper coming. There’s a cobweb above the front door, she bats at it with her coat sleeve, and sees the weeds sprouting up in her garden, poking up through the plants, making everything look overgrown, abandoned. Her key still works in the lock, the door creaking only slightly as it opens. 

It all looks the same, inside, and Serena’s breath catches in her throat. The sun casts the same shadows through the windows, the dust motes filtering through the air. Bernie’s left a pair of boots in the hallway, Jason’s old coat hangs from one of the hooks on the rack. Serena drops her keys on the small table, pops the handle of her suitcase back down. 

The air smells stale, and Serena opens a window, the cold breeze rushing through the house and Serena imagines it sweeping all the bad memories away. _Out with the old, in with the new_ , she thinks, brushing a hand through her greying hair. 

She sees Jason, they have lunch. It’s tentative, they’re both shy - so much has happened, so much has been left unsaid. He shakes her hand goodbye, doesn’t let her wrap her arms around his frame, but promises they’ll have lunch together again, suggests they get a coffee at Pulses, and Serena’s heart nearly breaks at the gesture, at his kindness.

On her first day back, she wakes before her alarm, stares at her ceiling, counting all the long moments until the chime sounds, then puts her feet on the floor. She wiggles her toes against the rug, as if to reassure herself she’s got feeling in her limbs. Her reflection still feels strange, she stares at it unblinking, her forehead wide and bare, her hair swept back, grey and light, and she thinks for the first time that she might look old. But the thought doesn’t scare her, doesn’t trouble her. She pulls on a shirt, bright and pink, a shield against the gloom she used to wear about like a cloak.

She packs a lunch, makes a thermos of tea, finds her old briefcase, the name badge with her first staff photo still tucked inside. She wraps a scarf around her neck, a Christmas present from Bernie, red and patterned and cheerful, needs all the joy she can find.

The drive is familiar, it’s easy. Her muscle memory takes over as she turns the wheel, pulling into the parking lot. It’s been ten months. Ten long months since she’s set foot on Holby City’s property. The last time she was here, she reeked of cigarettes and wine, too sad to think properly, too overcome by the sense that she’d been inhabited by a stranger. 

Serena drums her fingers against the steering wheel, not quite able to turn the car off yet, not quite able to open the door. She wishes Bernie was here. Not that she, by any means, wants to take Bernie away from the work she’s doing, the work she loves. But she would like the solid comfort, the warming presence, of Bernie Wolfe next to her in this moment. 

She sees some familiar faces walking through the doors of Holby, sees Morven, her coat clutched close around her. Serena blinks her eyes at unexpected tears as she thinks of all the new faces, fresh and unscarred by Holby, that are coming to work as well. Her friends, her loved ones, replaced by strangers. Her hand rests on her heart, a comforting thump beneath her fingers, and she opens the door to her car.

The parking lot is cold, bare, a gust of air battering her cheeks. When Serena stands in the shadow of the hospital, she is overcome with it all for a moment. She can see, from where she stands, the roof where she stood, blowing smoke into the wind, her red coat a beacon of her pain. She can see the spot where Jason pushed her out of the way of a moving car, can feel the vivid shock at the sight of him prone on the ground.

She knows the hallways will be filled with ghosts too, with remembrances, and doesn’t know how to prepare her heart for it. She can picture the shadow of her mother, the traces of Elinor. She thinks of Raf, blinks back the tears - it’s still fresh. 

“Holby is struggling,” Hanssen had told her, when he called her in France, asked her to come home. “Holby is struggling without you.” She knows he means that _he_ is struggling, that _he_ is fumbling. She thinks he’s in the midst of his darkness, the least she can do for him is to be the light. 

She squares her shoulders, as if she is going to war, and pushes through the doors.


End file.
